Search for Life in the Universe I

Jun 23, 2003

The Search for Life in the Universe I

Reflections on the scientific and cultural implications of finding life in the cosmos

Search for Life in the Universe: Part II

If the person on next to me on a long airplane flight ever finds out that I am an astrophysicist, nine times out of ten they ask, with wide eyes, about life in the universe. And only later do they ask me about the big bang and black holes. I know of no other discipline that triggers such a consistent and reliable reaction in public sentiment. This phenomenon is not limited to Americans. The time-honored question: “What is our place in the universe” might just be genetically encoded in our species. All known cultures across all of time have attempted to answer that question. Today we ask the same question, but with fewer words: “Are we alone?”

Two species greeting each other, separated by epochs. Homo sapien and T. Rex

Ordinarily, there is no riskier step that a scientist (or anyone) can take than to make sweeping generalizations from just one example. At the moment, life on Earth is the only known life in the universe, but there are compelling arguments to suggest we are not alone. Indeed, most astrophysicists accept a high probability of there being life elsewhere in the universe, if not on other planets or on moons within our own solar system. The numbers are, well, astronomical: If the count of planets in our solar system is not unusual, then there are more planets in the universe than the sum of all sounds and words ever uttered by every human who has ever lived. To declare that Earth must be the only planet in the cosmos with life would be inexcusably egocentric of us.

Many generations of thinkers, both religious and scientific, have been led astray by anthropic assumptions, while others were simply led astray by ignorance. In the absence of dogma and data, history tells us that it’s prudent to be guided by the notion that we are not special, which is generally known as the Copernican principle, named for the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus who, in the mid 1500s, put the Sun back in the middle of our solar system where it belongs. In spite of a third century B.C. account of a sun-centered universe proposed by the Greek philosopher Aristarchus, the Earth-centered universe was by far the most popular view for most of the last 2000 years. Codified by the teachings of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and by the preachings of the Roman Catholic Church, people generally accepted Earth as the center of all motion. It was self-evident: the universe not only looked that way, but God surely made it so. The sixteenth century Italian monk Giordano Bruno suggested publicly that an infinite universe was filled with planets that harbor life. For these thoughts he was burned upside down and naked at the stake. Fortunately, today we live in somewhat more tolerant times.

While there is no guarantee that the Copernican principle will guide us correctly for all scientific discoveries to come, it has humbled our egos with the realization that not only is Earth not in the center of the solar system, but the solar system is not in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and the Milky Way galaxy is not in the center of the universe. And in case you are one of those people who thinks that the edge may be a special place, then we are not at the edge of anything either.

Alien species, terrestrial biodiversity.Credit: NGS

A wise contemporary posture would be to assume that life on Earth is not immune to the Copernican principle. If so, then how can the appearance or the chemistry of life on Earth provide clues to what life might be like elsewhere in the universe?

I do not know whether biologists walk around every day awestruck by the diversity of life. I certainly do. On this single planet called Earth, there co-exist (among countless other life forms), algae, beetles, sponges, jellyfish, snakes, condors, and giant sequoias. Imagine these seven living organisms lined up next to each other in size-place. If you didn’t know better, you would be hard-pressed to believe that they all came from the same universe, much less the same planet. Try describing a snake to somebody who has never seen one: “You gotta believe me. There is this animal on Earth that 1) can stalk its prey with infrared detectors, 2) swallows whole live animals up to five times bigger than its head, 3) has no arms or legs or any other appendage, yet 4) can slide along level ground at a speed of two feet per second!”

Hourglass marking dawn since nebula, an exploded star peering back through time.Credit: Hubble

Given the diversity of life on Earth, one might expect a diversity of life exhibited among Hollywood aliens. But I am consistently amazed by the film industry’s lack of creativity. With a few notable exceptions such as life forms in The Blob (1958) and in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Hollywood aliens look remarkably humanoid. No matter how ugly (or cute) they are, nearly all of them have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears, a head, a neck, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, a torso, two legs, two feet — and they can walk. From an anatomical view, these creatures are practically indistinguishable from humans, yet they are supposed to have come from another planet. If anything is certain, it is that life elsewhere in the universe, intelligent or otherwise, will look at least as exotic as some of Earth’s own life forms.

The chemical composition of Earth-based life is primarily derived from a select few ingredients. The elements hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon account for over 95% of the atoms in the human body and in all known life. Of the three, the chemical structure of the carbon atom allows it to bond readily and strongly with itself and with many other elements in many different ways, which is how we came to be carbon-based life, and which is why the study of molecules that contain carbon is generally known as “organic” chemistry. The study of life elsewhere in the universe is known as exobiology, which is one of the few disciplines that, at the moment, attempts to function in the complete absence of first-hand data.

Is life chemically special? The Copernican principle suggests that it probably isn’t. Aliens need not look like us to resemble us in more fundamental ways. Consider that the four most common elements in the universe are hydrogen, helium, carbon, and oxygen. Helium is inert. So the three most abundant, chemically active ingredients in the cosmos are also the top three ingredients in life on Earth. For this reason, you can bet that if life is found on another planet, it will be made of a similar mix of elements. Conversely, if life on Earth were composed primarily of, for example, molybdenum, bismuth, and plutonium, then we would have excellent reason to suspect that we were something special in the universe.

Appealing once again to the Copernican principle, we can assume that the size of an alien organism is not likely to be ridiculously large compared with life as we know it. There are cogent structural reasons why you would not expect to find a life the size of the Empire State Building strutting around a planet. But if we ignore these engineering limitations of biological matter we approach another, more fundamental limit. If we assume that an alien has control of its own appendages, or more generally, if we assume the organism functions coherently as a system, then its size would ultimately be constrained by its ability to send signals within itself at the speed of light — the fastest allowable speed in the universe. For an admittedly extreme example, if an organism were as big as the entire solar system (about 10 light-hours across), and if it wanted to scratch its head, then this simple act would take no less than 10 hours to accomplish. Sub-slothlike behavior such as this would be evolutionarily self-limiting because the time since the beginning of the universe may be insufficient for the creature to have evolved from smaller forms of life over many generations.